The vowel in “ -ar” words in my accent is more or less identical to the vowel I use in “ -aw” words. In fact, I think a pun like “ cart in the act” would be pretty easily understood by most Americans (and indeed, a Google search produces at least two instances of Americans using just that pun in headlines). The latter tend toward a fairly close “caught” vowel, while the former, especially in the cot-caught merged states, notoriously pronounce the word not dissimilarly from Southeastern British “ c art“. The bigger problem is that most Americans use a very different vowel in “ c aught” than the one they use in “ c ourt“, which is different still from the vowel Australians use. But the /r/ here occurs before another alveolar consonant, so the difference is hardly as prominent as it would be for Milne’s classic Eeyore pun (made all the more amusing by the vowel lengthening in non-rhotic British “ -ore”: eee-aaawww). Americans generally pronounce the /r/ in “ Cou rtney” where Australians don’t. I think Jenek’s right, it would take a second or two for most Americans to detect the pun, but not quite for the reason it might seem. “Except,” Jenek says (and I’m paraphrasing), “maybe Boston or somewhere.” In an early episode, Act/Jenek laments that Americans don’t get the pun in his stage name, which sounds similar to “ caught in the act” to Australians (i.e.
This season of RuPaul’s Drag Race featured Courtney Act (aka Shane Jenek), a renowned drag performer from Brisbane, Australia.
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